Sweet Dreams
by Midnight-Halos
Summary: Nanao fights against both her nightmares and her dreams. Kyouraku watches but doesn't know what it is she's so frightened of.
1. What She Sees

Wow, it's been a while. Well, I've got the next installment of my little series and you'll find out what the next one is in the second half of this two shot which'll be up tomorrow.

Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach or this wonderful pairing

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Nanao does her best not to dream at night. 

She accomplishes this quite well for the most part, though her way of going about this is rather...unorthodox. Most people ward off dreams through traditional or more modern ways. For example, an extremely popular way of warding off nightmares is to do this with a sort of dreamcatcher, which was introduced to Soul Society by way of a Native American who found their way to Japan and died there and had a surprising amount of reiatsu which allowed him to remember what part of his former life was. This person is still alive but it's speculated that he is nearly as old as Yamamoto is and lives somewhere off the outskirts of...somewhere. Of course, human dreamcatchers are completely ineffective, but if made skillfully in Soul Society...well, you get the picture.

These ornaments caused a bit of a ruckus when a maid once revealed that she'd seen a dreamcatcher in Kuchiki-taichou's room, causing an outbreak of gossip which lasted an approximate three days. The maid mysteriously disappeared that day and that was the end of the gossip, not to mention that Rukia-san avoided her brother like the plague for the next month or two. Since then, several fukutaichos have found themselves landed with the jobs of cleaning out their rooms for them.

Kyouraku-taicho found himself being chased out of the office by random office appliances when he suggested it.

Then there are the more natural ways of warding off dreams, such as putting a small sack of herbs under the pillow to soothe the mind, or a short session of some gentle stretching or deep meditation in order to relax the body, or watching how much they eat before sleep and making sure the room is comfortable. Or, like some other, immoral people do, sleeping with someone else tends to take away their dreams.

She's tried all of them-yes, even the last when she was particularly drunk and depressed though heaven forbid that Kyouraku-taicho find out-in the first few months that she decided that she needed to quit dreaming, and none of them seemed to work. Not to mention the embarassment that when Kyouraku-taichou found the herb pillow.

So she went to extreme measures to stop herself from dreaming.

She currently refrains from sleeping completely.

Oh, she knows perfectly well the stress and the harm this could cause in her body, but as long as she doesn't dream she could really care less. And it isn't as if she doesn't sleep _ever. _Of course she does. She sleeps when it's not dark outside. For example, when Kyouraku-taichou is off doing whatever he does, she closes the office door and allows herself an hour or two of light sleep and no one is the wiser. And if she's in a situation where she absolutely must sleep at night, she goes to Unohana-taichou and asks her for a sleeping medication. She doesn't use this too often as she tends to get dependent upon that stupid little blue pill and then the effect wears off and the dreams return

But anyway, it's only when it's night time that she dreams.

The night seems to trigger reactions in her brain which grants her reoccuring dreams, so Nanao isn't quite sure what she's afraid of more, her nightmares or her dreams.

When she's in a nightmare, you see, she dreams of walls. Walls that stretch and twist and turn to connect themselves into an endless maze with far too many dead ends for her liking. Now, being the sensible person she is, in this kind of nightmare, she would simply sit down and meditate until she woke up.

And she would, if it wasn't for that other thing in the maze. She's never seen much more than the square eyes that reflect light like glass of whatever it is that chases her down the labyrinth, but something tells her that she really doesn't want to, even though it doesn't have hot and heavy breath and it doesn't make growling, threatening sounds. Really, all she can hear is the stampeding of feet. But still, she runs.

She runs from whatever or whoever (For she knows that more than any animal, she fears other humans the most) it is, fear lending speed to her feet. She despairs when she runs into a dead end, banging against the walls, throwing herself at them only to be repelled by what feels distinctly like her own reiatsu and she recognizes the many layered barriers as one that she can make but cannot unmake to let herself out.

The thought of pulling out her zanpakutou and fighting the creature has never occurred to her.

In the end, she must thank whatever deity is watching over her for the pink robed, bumbling, drunken mess who always manages to wake her up before she comes face to face with her monster. Or monsters. She's heard more than one chasing her before, after all.

But while she fears her nightmare, at least there is some semblance of control. At least there are rules in her nightmare, which is survival, to outrun the creatures chasing after her and at least it makes sort of sense.

But in her dreams...it's like stepping into an alternate reality.

In her dreams, she stands in a whirlwind of sakura petals.

When she looks down at herself, she isn't robed in the standard shinigami uniform as she should be, being that she's outside. No, she's in a strangely white kimono with invisible stitches piecing together the rich silk. In her hand lies not a tome, sword, or pen-all of which she can and does use as weapons-but a crimson parasol to protect her lovely, pale skin from the sun

She can't move left or right in this dream due to the walls of sakura branches and petals on either side of her, so she must move straight ahead along the cream colored path. And so she does. But after a moment or two, she realizes that she's being watched by a multitude of eyes through the branches, all of them whispering admiringly and she feels self conscious.

And then she looks at herself once more and then glances behind her to see a procession of faceless people, all following her solemnly. And though she can't make out their face, she feels excitement and joy saturating the air and she doesn't know what to make of this until she faces the front again to see a temple and she pales for she suddenly understands.

She is in the middle of a wedding procession, with her as the bride.

She continues to walk, swallowing all this information in her usual way, looking down and when she looks up again she sees herself at the altar and someone much taller than her across from her. She can't see their face for she's looking straight at his chest and modesty dictates her to keep her eyes lowered for the duration of the ceremony. But when the time comes, she feels a strong hand cupping her chin, tilting her head up and panic overcomes her.

She could submit.

(_She's never allowed herself to be vulnerable in her life_)

She could protest.

_(Her heart's never pounded against her ribcage so hard before)_

She could run.

_(Her knees are buckling and she can't breathe)_

She could make a scene.

_(But oh god, she wanted all those eyes to go away just so she could bask in this person's glory)_

She could have stopped in the middle of the path, stopping the procession.

_(She wants to know if there's any sort of future waiting beyond the wedding)_

She could have broken through the wall of sakura if she put her mind to it.

_(She's afraid to ruin her clothes; she's never handled clothes so costly before)_

She could do any of these things and in this dream, the choice is hers.

_(Her mind tells her to do one thing, her heart tells her to do something else)_

She doesn't want that freedom.

_(She's afraid to accept the love radiating from the man in front of her)_

Like her nightmare, she wakes up before looking into her husband-to-be's face.

To dream and be unable to wake herself means to lose herself, to show weakness. She refuses, and so she refuses sleep as well although she does end up having to succumb to a night's sleep about once or twice every week or two.

Kyouraku-taichou doesn't know just how grateful she is for all the extra paperwork.

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Er...I'm just going to back away now. I hope you enjoyed reading this, despite what _I _think about this piece of- 

Please review.


	2. What He Knows

I tried to make Kyouraku have some angst. Honest, I tried! And it started out that way...and then he got drunk and silly all over again. Anyway, tried to have this out yesterday but I couldn't get on.

Disclaimer: I don't own this

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Shunsui Kyouraku doesn't dream at all. The sake sees to that. 

Being drunk, he'd discovered many, many eons ago, completely deflated the mind to the point where black and white colored comprehensive thought was impossible when his eyes were closed, let alone vividly colored, motion packed dreams with surround sound. And, due to more experimentation and endurance, he had discovered that he could hold off the extent of the alcohol's effect until he allowed himself to relax for sleep, so that he was still frighteningly aware and ready for action.

Even if most of the action generally revolved around harassing a certain Nanao-chan.

However, like death, it isn't the dreaming that he finds rather unpleasant for Shunsui Kyouraku is an incredibly well disciplined man despite any protests that people may make-such as the same certain Nanao-chan- and is very aware of himself and can certainly tell when he is dreaming and when he is not. Oh no, what he finds incredibly unsettling are the voices that he hears before sleep overcomes him.

And the moon.

These phenomenons he blames on the sake for Shunsui Kyouraku is well aware of the effects that alcohol has on him and that if he was completely sober, he'd suffer none of those at night save a slight alcohol withdrawal irritation.

The moon is a pleasant thing to watch in the presence of friends and sake but when alone and drunkenness begins to catch up, he finds that the rays of the moon seems to weigh down on him with some kind of burden and it becomes hard to breathe. Although that might have something to do with the feasts that he usually invites himself to to celebrate the full moon. There are the nights where the moon doesn't shine, but then the darkness closes around along with the voices which nag at him about certain wars and friends and other such things.

Frankly, he finds this all incredibly bothersome and resolves himself to learn how to fall asleep the second his head hits the pillow unless of course, he has some other person occupying his room(Which also generally includes his bed unless it's Nanao-chan, who was once forced to stay in his room due to the suspicious lack of boarding area in every other district and the leaking of the ceiling in her own room. She chose to spend these nights in the corner of his room curled up in the fetal position as if to protect herself from him. Everytime he so much as stood up to offer her another blanket, she woke up, glared at him blearily, shook her heavy tome at him-which served as her pillow-then returned to sleep.). These voices are incredibly bothersome to him mainly because they sound uncannily like certain people he chose to hold dear, some of these being those of his mother and father who were pushing him to stop flirting and settle down with some nice girl who would bear him lots of children, Ukitake telling him wryly that he needed to stop making his vice captains suffer, and one that bore an unsettling resemblance to Nanao-chan, demanding that he get off his rear and get to his paperwork, she had finished hers and was _not _doing his for him again. (This particular voice made him extremely guilty when Nanao-chan worked on paperwork in lamplight in his room).

However, it was during this time when Nanao-chan was in his room that he discovered his new favorite past time at night. What else could it be but the fine art of Nanao watching? Not that he didn't already do this enough during the day but it was a nice change to watch Nanao relax at night a little bit, the sharp contours of her face though lovely, relaxed at night making her face absolutely radiant.

It was also during this almost obsessive hobby that he discovered Nanao's severe case of insomnia. He also discovered her practice of sleeping in the office as he'd been planning on surprising her with his presence when he'd happened to come through the ceiling-a place he'd discovered when he first hid from one of his vice captains though how he managed to not make the boards squeak underneath his weight or chase out any rats because of his ridiculous pink haori was beyond his white haired best friend-and looked down to see her napping rather contentedly. So he'd decided to leave her alone for a few hours every day and then shock her with his presence although he always did this with his reiatsu uncloaked...just in case she was still dozing.

It was also due to trying to catch her sleeping, he saw her dreams and nightmares. Not that he knew what was in them but after finding that she suffered from sleeping, he made sure to wake up earlier than any man that had drunk over eight jugs of sake the night before had any right to be and stumble into her room as if he were drunk if he found her sleeping and give her cause to wake. There was no point in trying to chase away her nightmares because she wouldn't accept the help even if he wanted to know what she was so terrified of. Besides, it wasn't as if it was a problem for him; despite getting drunk to the point where he could fall asleep any time he wished, he could get up again just as easily without any trace of a hangover whatsoever.

He actually found the morning ritual rather amusing and if he could accomplish this, Shunsui Kyouraku knew he was probably going to have a good day.

Unless Nanao had a strange dream in which he must have done something really stupid to make her hit him with the tome first thing in the morning.

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Eh...yeah. Let's just leave it at that for now. I still need ideas for the series though, so if you'd give me any ideas for future themes, I'd be extremely grateful 


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